Quote:
Originally Posted by !Marc!
It has shrunk 15% in the last 20 years, so we might be very lucky and see it right at the end of our lives but I very much doubt it. I (crazily) guess it probably has to shrink at least 90% until it hits the iron core and rebounds, which means probably another 100 years at least.
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Exponential accelerating curves? I don't remember seeing what the
rate of shrinkage is. The off-gassing has to be relatively insignificant compared to the total mass. Smaller and denser, means greater gravity at the surface which means more inward acceleration per unit time... Whenever this one does go we learn a bunch more about how big stars really die.